Let's Get Physiological

Systems biology is a multi-tentacled approach to understanding biological phenomena that has left no segment of the study of life unaffected. While some systems biologists aim to identify the interconnections giving rise to life in individual cells, others with a more physiological perspective have bigger fish to fry—trying to understand an organism from interactions between its many components. Serving this rapidly evolving and wide-ranging discipline is the Physiome Project, an effort that seeks to integrate models of organ function, endocrine systems, and biochemical interactions to provide a better understanding of organisms. Benefits of this approach will likely include insights into medical problems and more effectively designed devices for use in the human body.

@ www.physiome.org

Thunder Down Under

One would almost have to be a hermit not to be aware that the oceans are the latest ecological battlegrounds. Once considered too immense for humanity to have significant impact on them, stories in recent years of rapidly diminishing coral reefs and over-harvested fisheries have reminded us that these important systems are not infinite resources and can, in fact, be affected by human activity. The SeaWeb site seeks to raise public awareness by “advancing science-based solutions and mobilizing decision-makers around ocean conservation” to achieve its goals. Their strategy has many elements, including publications (Ocean Update and SeaWeb Reports), a Real Audio radio show, and connections to related sites around the world.

@ seaweb.org/home.php

Flora/Fauna Finder

Like the tip of an iceberg reveals only a tiny portion of its immense size, the NatureServe web site does a dandy job of keeping mountains of information from interfering with its visitors. When you consider that an enormous database of 65,000 plants, animals, and ecosystems in the U.S. and Canada is an unobtrusive component of this multifaceted web site, you get the picture. A nonprofit organization strongly rooted in a scientific approach to conservation, NatureServe is a leading source of information about endangered species and ecosystems. From free, technical, online publications to comprehensive databases, NatureServe abounds with content without overpowering casual browsers.

@ www.natureserve.org/index.jsp

Easy, Simple, Fast

You've determined a new DNA sequence, and you want to know more about it. There are thousands of web sites with an even greater number of analyses available at your beck and call, but wading into that morass may get you overwhelmed quickly. What you really need is a well-organized strategy offering simple, as well as complicated sequence crunching, and that is exactly what you'll find at the URL below. Organized in eight basic categories are pointers to applications that will find splice sites and ORFs and then translate the latter coding region(s) into protein. Options for BLASTing the resulting polypeptide sequence across numerous databases, identifying protein motifs, creating PCR primers, predicting secondary structures, formatting sequences for output, and predicting mass spectral fragmentation patterns flag this cleverly designed site as a one-stop wonder.

@ www.yk.rim.or.jp/∼aisoai/tool.html

Elementary and Complex

Any periodic table worth its salt will list the elements, their atomic numbers, and their masses, but if your needs for information about the chemical building blocks goes beyond basic info, you'll want to head to WebElements, one of the most elaborate online periodic table collections to be found. Like the tables hanging in every chemistry classroom, the scheme is instantly recognizable, but WebElements differs from its printed cousins significantly in its depth. Clicking on an element brings up a panoply of well-organized data, including everything from NMR properties and lattice energies of compounds containing it, to thermodynamic properties, ionization energies, and valence shell radii of each atom. The histories of the elements make great reading too.

@ www.webelements.com

The URL for The Euglenoid Project in the December 2006 WebWatch was incorrect. It should have been listed as www.plantbiology.msu.edu/triemer/Euglena/Index.htm. We regret the error.